Paranoidangel's Blog

Fic and work and drilling

My posting date for dw_guestfest was today, so I managed to finish my story yesterday. I probably could have finished it sooner if I hadn't spent so much time putting off adding description. I declared it finished partly because I was sick of reading it. And I'd run out of description-adding ability. It features Kate Stewart and Counter-Measures - it's the first story on AO3 with Ian Gilmore and the second with Rachel and Allison (I wrote the other one). Here it is on AO3: Time Team. (Posting it really wasn't helped by LJ logging me out every time I tried to preview it)

I was thinking I'd get it more finished this week, but they suddenly started making people redundant at work. My job is fine, but we now have fewer people in the department, so we're busy and lacking in motivation. It didn't help my motivation for getting anything done until last night when I could put work to the back of my mind for a bit.

But today I did some drilling! I tried it a couple of months ago for putting a front door curtain up, but didn't achieve much other than drilling through the masking tape. This time I was putting up a towel rail, which was easier because I could stand on the floor, but harder because you really had to get it the holes in the right place and couldn't draw through anything. But the instructions were great - they even told me what size drill bit to use.

I tried the first hole, didn't get anywhere, changed a few settings (the drill has so many settings) and finally managed to do more than make a dent in the wall. It looks so easy when other people do it, but in reality the drill is heavy and you have to push hard and I ended up with an aching wrist, even though I was holding the drill with both hands. I thought I'd do the other hole anyway, to get it out of the way. And I discovered (partly) why the old towel rail had not been terribly secure - half the wall is hollow. One minute I was drilling hard, the next there was no resistance.

So I'm not sure how long/well this one will stay up. It's also not quite straight, due to me not drilling the whole straight. But had I drilled the hole straight they'd have been slightly too far apart. So it's pretty much cobbled together, but considering it's the first drilling I've ever done, it's not bad. I can certainly live with it.